You just listened to the WhyWork episode, now listen to the WhyNOT Wisdom Shot.
Oftentimes, workplaces are implementing things that don't have evidence to support them when
they're looking at something as fundamental and basic as manual task risk management.
Okay, why?
Well, they may have learned and may have been borrowing from other disciplines like exercise
science, which is great in use when working with somebody one-on-one, but doesn't have the
same crossover in industrial settings.
Things like just doing the postural assessment or things like looking at musclar contraction
activity with electrodes, trying to understand these assessments or looking at training
in manual handling behavioral-based training.
Okay, why not?
Well, the evidence does not translate to populations of workers in industrial settings.
It's not looking at the true interaction of risk factors that's really meaningful, including
the cognitive, psychosocial, environmental exposures in the work system.
And those physical aspects need to be translated to a whole of a person and a whole of a job,
not just integrated by a single hazard or a single muscle belly or an energy source.
Okay, what's the verdict?
Go back to basics, consult with your workers, understand that work design and redesign must happen
in a very concerted effort to first identify the business objective and second to start
understanding what's the real human performance issues based on the realities of work and
start from there to redesign based on human performance, productivity, and integrate all
of that activity with other business units, find a shared way to benefit, if you will,
and to advance redesign throughout the entire structure of business.
You heard the verdict, advance.